No 1- What is this Substack column about? And why should you read it?
An introduction to Dr Jake and his plan to do some medical education
Tldr (Too Long Didn’t Read) Summary
Hi, I am Dr Jake and I am a UK based GP trainee (a doctor training in what Americans would call Family Medicine). My goal for this column is to write at least one article a week on something medically related that interesting, weird or a conundrum that we don’t really have the answer to.
My aspiration is to write articles that will be interesting to anyone interested in health but especially to “blokes” who have never before taken an interest (thats why they will be short and simple). I want to help “blokes” understand “men’s health” and just how to be healthy in general.
These articles will also help me to summarise the latest medical guidelines that I need to know to be a good doctor. Wish me luck!
Why should you read this column?
It is going to be fun, short, interesting, useful and may answer some of those weird questions you have always wondered about, like, why do almost all antibiotic prescriptions last 7 days? What is so magical about 7 days?
Who am I and why should you read what I am writing?
Hello again, I am Dr Jake. I graduated from medical school in the UK in 2015 and have been working in a range of post-graduate medical jobs in the UK ever since. I have recently started training to be a General Practioner (Family Medicine Attending) and this means that for the next 3 to 4 years that I am going to be studying almost all of medicine. The studying is hopefully going to make me a competent doctor and enable me to past all of those pesky exams that I have coming up!
As part of the training to become a GP in the UK we trainee doctors have to “reflect” on our practice: the cases we have seen; teaching sessions we have been too; papers we have read etc etc and I thought that I could kill two birds with one stone and try to make this process useful for me and hopefully for you.
I am passionate about medicine and have been fascinated with the human body since I was about 12 years old. I was a nerdy kid and started reading pop-science books in my free time. This led me to read some of the books by my medical-author hero’s such as Atul Gawande, Max Pemberton, James LeFanu, Theodore Dalrymple, Ken Berry and many others. Dr Gawande especially was inspiring and he suggests that the only way that you will get better at writing is by practice and so, I am now going to practice and I am hoping that you will stick with me.
I am also passionate about medical education and science. I want to take what I have been told, what I have learnt, what I have read, apply the latest “science” to it and then summarise it down as simply as I can for you – the readers. Medical education made easy - that is the plan.
Ground Rules
1. I am going to be disciplined and do my best to produce at least one post a week.
2. I am going to take questions – if you have a random medical question or would like some help in trying to understand a certain subject then please leave a comment and I will do my best to help.
3. I am going to keep these short. [side bar – an abstract is 250 words, a newspaper column is 900 words, a scientific paper is normally 3000 words, and a book is 60-90k words. I will try to keep it as short and simple as possible. I promise].
4. KISS – I am a simple person and always follow this principle – Keep It Simple Stupid!
5. “See one, do one, teach one” – the oldest of medical education paradigms
6. “You don’t really understand something, unless you can explain it in language a 12 year old can follow”
7. “Half of everything you are taught at medical school will turn out to be wrong in 10 years time, the trouble is, we don’t know which half” – this is what I was told on my first day at med school and so far, its been fairly accurate. This is the reason why we all need to keep reading, debating, studying and learning.
8. Be the best doctor and medical educator you can be. The ancient Latin for doctor was “medicus” and “doctor” really means “teacher”.
9. If I make an error then please point it out in the comments and I will correct it.
10. I am not giving you (yes, you) any personal medical advice. Everything I write will just be for general information and if you decide you want further advice then you should speak to your own doctor.
Thank you for reading this first post. I promise the next one will be more interesting.
[Rule 3 - Word count 836. Boom!]
Previously Published Articles:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=EnTi4QoAAAAJ
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jacob-Matthews-4
First
Hi Jake. I'm working with a young American writer-comedian who is performing her show about working undercover in NYC hospitals during COVID to the Edinburgh Fringe. I was wondering if we could talk about you potentially interviewing her for a future article in MediCurious? I'm on james(at)openinglinesmedia.co.uk Thanks.